Optical microcavity

About: Optical microcavity is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2599 publications have been published within this topic receiving 72125 citations. The topic is also known as: optical microcavities.

Semiconductor micro-resonator device

Abstract: An optical, semiconductor micro-resonator device includes a microcavity resonator (12) and a pair of adjacent waveguides (14, 16). The microactivity resonator has a curved diameter of approximately 56000*lambda.lg/n.res or less where lambda.lg is the longest operating wavelength of light and n.res is the propagating refractive index. Light propagating in the first waveguide (14) with a wavelength on resonance with the microcavity resonator is coupled to the second waveguide (16) for output therefrom. Light propagating in the first waveguide (14) with a wavelength that is off resoance with the microcavity resonator continues to propagate in the first waveguide (14) for output therefrom.

A gated quantum dot strongly coupled to an optical microcavity

Abstract: The strong-coupling regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) represents the light–matter interaction at the fully quantum level. Adding a single photon shifts the resonance frequencies—a profound nonlinearity. Cavity QED is a test bed for quantum optics1–3 and the basis of photon–photon and atom–atom entangling gates4,5. At microwave frequencies, cavity QED has had a transformative effect6, enabling qubit readout and qubit couplings in superconducting circuits. At optical frequencies, the gates are potentially much faster; the photons can propagate over long distances and can be easily detected. Following pioneering work on single atoms1–3,7, solid-state implementations using semiconductor quantum dots are emerging8–15. However, miniaturizing semiconductor cavities without introducing charge noise and scattering losses remains a challenge. Here we present a gated, ultralow-loss, frequency-tunable microcavity device. The gates allow both the quantum dot charge and its resonance frequency to be controlled electrically. Furthermore, cavity feeding10,11,13–17, the observation of the bare-cavity mode even at the quantum dot–cavity resonance, is eliminated. Even inside the microcavity, the quantum dot has a linewidth close to the radiative limit. In addition to a very pronounced avoided crossing in the spectral domain, we observe a clear coherent exchange of a single energy quantum between the ‘atom’ (the quantum dot) and the cavity in the time domain (vacuum Rabi oscillations), whereas decoherence arises mainly via the atom and photon loss channels. This coherence is exploited to probe the transitions between the singly and doubly excited photon–atom system using photon-statistics spectroscopy18. The work establishes a route to the development of semiconductor-based quantum photonics, such as single-photon sources and photon–photon gates. Strong coupling between a gated semiconductor quantum dot and an optical microcavity is observed in an ultralow-loss frequency-tunable microcavity device.

Optical filter including a sub-wavelength periodic structure and method of making

Abstract: An optical filter includes a dielectric layer formed within a resonant optical cavity, with the dielectric layer having formed therein a sub-wavelength periodic structure to define, at least in part, a wavelength for transmission of light through the resonant optical cavity. The sub-wavelength periodic structure can be formed either by removing material from the dielectric layer (e.g. by etching through an electron-beam defined mask), or by altering the composition of the layer (e.g. by ion implantation). Different portions of the dielectric layer can be patterned to form one or more optical interference filter elements having different light transmission wavelengths so that the optical filter can filter incident light according to wavelength and/or polarization. For some embodiments, the optical filter can include a detector element in optical alignment with each optical interference filter element to quantify or measure the filtered light for analysis thereof. The optical filter has applications to spectrometry, colorimetry, and chemical sensing.

Microfabricated high-finesse optical cavity with open access and small volume

Abstract: We present a microfabricated optical cavity, which combines a very small mode volume with high finesse. In contrast to other micro-resonators, such as microspheres, the structure we have built gives atoms and molecules direct access to the high-intensity part of the field mode, enabling them to interact strongly with photons in the cavity for the purposes of detection and quantum-coherent manipulation. Light couples directly in and out of the resonator through an optical fiber, avoiding the need for sensitive coupling optics. This renders the cavity particularly attractive as a component of a lab-on-a-chip, and as a node in a quantum network.